


'cos even if your grades are bad (it doesn't mean you're failing)

by Asexual_Ravioli



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Bedsharing, Cunnilingus, F/F, Fingering, Jealousy, Masturbation, Roommates, discussion of abortion and miscarriage, hangovers and vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 03:03:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19098457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asexual_Ravioli/pseuds/Asexual_Ravioli
Summary: No. Not staring. Mikasa was somehow…smoldering, chin tilted down, eyes up, longing. She bit lightly on the edge of her pen, and Annie broke out in a sweat, feeling her visual virginity slipping away, if that was a thing, and though it wasn’t, Annie’s clothes were peeled away bit by bit under Mikasa’s heavy gaze.Annie sunk in her chair and covered her face. “You don’t need to study me, Mikasa.”Mikasa pulled the pen from her mouth and pouted. “But you’re so endlessly fascinating. I’m sure I could ace you.”“I give you an F. Wait, NO!”





	'cos even if your grades are bad (it doesn't mean you're failing)

**Author's Note:**

> The song lyric of the title is from **[Ukulele Anthem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX07zUo2kSQ)** by Amanda Palmer.
> 
> However, I’d recommend you listen to her song **[The Ride.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGwFtdVpVMI)** Fits the mood better.

Annie came to Sina alone. The kiss and cry of her mother seeing her off from home, and her ultra-stoic father’s just slightly choked up farewell, they were enough. She couldn’t have withstood unpacking every last item in her dorm with them. So here she was, sitting alone in a dorm for two, a space less than half the size of her bedroom at home (not that _that_ was anything to brag about). She’d hung her clothes in the tiny closet. She’d put up a Metallica poster that refused to stay tacked up. She’d adjusted her bed by herself, raising it just a little over the ground so she could store a few of her things underneath. She didn’t mind the work, and the solitude suited her fine.

Quiet and stuffy, the light from the one window above the other bed signaling the hours before dusk.

None of this would last. She had the door closed, but she heard others moving around in the suite. Already she’d accidentally introduced herself to Hitch Dreyse, who pointedly told her that no, they were not roommates, and “so get out of my room.” Then there was Mina Carolina, Hitch’s actual roommate (poor kid), and Sasha Braus, whose room already stunk like hell from some curry she’d exploded during her microwave’s maiden voyage. None of them were people Annie was interested in befriending.

Then there was her own roommate, Mikasa Ackerman, who would bring the microwave, while Annie took care of the mini fridge. Annie didn’t know anything about this Mikasa, didn’t want to. She’d fought tooth and nail for a single room, but freshmen rarely got those perks.

She’d unloaded her bio books, the ones that cost hundreds of dollars, just for her introductory courses. She was glad the teachers had emailed them about buying books early, giving Annie time to hunt down the cheapest books she could. Sina U wasn’t cheap.

Hours ago, when she’d first cracked open her Bio 101 book on her bed, she told herself things would be different than high school. This headstart would last her, the little day planner her mom had bought her would actually be used past November, and Annie would get A’s. At least one A. B’s would be fine. No C’s, D’s, or F’s.

Luckily, her fat, imposing textbook was interesting. Well, it wasn’t dry. It was…bizarre, written by her professor, Hanji Zoe, whose apparent infatuation with footnotes could cause her to ramble for half a page in a microscopic courier font. But they were fascinating. Random minutiae she never would have learned otherwise. Seriously. She’d never have researched the sex life of Louis Pasteur on her own.

Besides that, she felt like she’d picked the right major. Biology was the mechanics of people, cells driving every function from breathing to blood flow. She lost herself in the details.

Hours, somehow, passed. Her teacher wasn’t the best, clearest writer, but her passion made her an incredibly engaging read. Annie had gotten through almost a hundred pages by the time she looked out the dorm’s window to see the sun bleeding low and orange on the clouds beneath it.

Voices close in the hall. The metal rustle of a key in the lock. Annie sighed and closed her book. The door opened.

“You don’t have to help me!” the girl who must have been Mikasa said.

“Too bad,” a brown-haired boy said, hefting a huge microwave in his arms.

“Yeah,” a blonde boy said, walking in after them with a cardboard box he could barely see over. “You need help, right?”

Mikasa ignored them, striding in and stopping in front of Annie sitting cross-legged on her bed, a book in her lap. “Annie?”

“Yeah,” she said. After a moment she held out her hand, and they shook. The other girl was beautiful. Tall, muscular, with long sweeps of jet-black hair that fell above her shoulders. She looked to be Asian, at least in part, and Annie couldn’t tell what color her eyes were. Black, or deep gray, but certainly serious. Eyes that could kick Annie’s ass. Altogether, the girl was threateningly gorgeous.

“Um…” Mikasa said. Annie realized she was staring. Their handshake over, Annie looked away.

“…Your brothers?” Annie said. “Or friends.”

The two boys had set down their boxes and wandered over.

“Both,” the brunette said. “Sort of.”

Annie glanced at her roommate, a ghost of a smile passing on the girl’s lips.

“Armin Arlert,” the blonde said, holding out a hand. Annie shook it. Next to Mikasa’s firm grip, Armin seemed frail. But his kind blue eyes showed a different strength.

“Eren Jaeger,” the other boy said brusquely. His handshake was hard and rough.

“Pleasure,” Annie murmured. She looked down at her biology book, really not in the mood for any of this. “Do you need help?” Annie said after a pause. She didn’t know where it came from.

“Sure,” Mikasa said. “Did your parents help you adjust your bed?”

Annie shook her head. “I didn’t want my parents to come and weep over me. Hassle. I did it all myself.”

There was an awkward silence. Armin and Eren shared a shocked glance. For some reason, Mikasa went into an angry sulk.

“I see,” Mikasa said shortly. “Maybe you could help me with that then.”

“Yeah. It’s easy. I can do it while you unload your stuff.”

“Thanks,” Mikasa said, voice devoid of any gratitude. “Put it as high as possible,” she said as she walked quickly from the room, followed by her friends. Armin glanced back at Annie only for a moment, a strange look of worry on his face. Eren grumbled to himself.

Annie tossed her book to the side and got to work. She pulled away Mikasa’s bare mattress and plopped it in the center of the room. Again using the tools she’d brought, she found that adjusting the bed was easier than the first time. She’d always been good with her hands, knowing how things worked in an instant. It was thanks to her dad, teaching her how to fix a sink and change the oil in the family car, the one he’d given her a week before she’d come here. She’d learned everything from him.

Maybe what Annie had said about her parents being a hassle came off as ungrateful.

She put her muscle into bolts and screws, working for several minutes until the trio came back in, depositing books and dishes and clothes silently, then running back out to get more. Annie felt like she’d done something wrong. She knew it. She knew a bit about how to read people. For example, Armin was frantic with worry, Eren was dropping boxes with irritation, and Mikasa…Mikasa was stiff. She was the hardest to read of all, those dark, composed eyes giving little away.

It made Annie uncomfortable, not knowing, not understanding what made her tick in an instant. She sped through her job on the bed, chasing away thoughts of her inscrutable roomie. She wasn’t fast enough that she finished before Mikasa had gotten everything out of her car. So she sat there making final adjustments to the bed while Armin and Eren helped organize and chattered away about their plans for Sina. Mikasa said little.

“I’m done,” Annie said, gathering her tools.

“Okay,” Mikasa said. “Thanks for the bed.”

Annie thought of leaving, but her phone went off with a barrage of texts from Reiner Braun. She sat back on her bed and began answering him.

“That’s it, Mika,” Eren said.

“I guess so,” Mikasa answered, a sighing lilt in her voice.

“Don’t be pouty,” Eren said and ruffled her hair, making Annie wonder once more if he was her brother. “See you tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“Bye, Annie,” Armin said softly. “Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah.”

Annie ignored a meme from Reiner and went back to her textbook. The splitting of cells. One becoming two, two becoming four. She knew all this, and shut the book with a sudden bored agitation. Then Annie chose to spy on Mikasa as she made up her bed. From the entrance, Annie’s bed was on the left wall, Mikasa’s on the right, the latter standing high over plastic bins and supplies (Annie would never give voice to the fear that she was too short to climb that height with ease, hence the low setup).

It really wasn’t creepy, to stare at Mikasa as she bent over boxes. Who wouldn’t? The girl was a drop-dead supermodel. The kind of pretty from pretty people magazines that stank of perfume. An advertisement for clear skin, a rocking body, and silky miles of black, black hair. A ten-step how-to on how to make a 6th-grade version of Annie a stammering mess. Luckily, Annie had walled her heart in with stone by now. By pretending not to care, she ascended.

She looked down at her bedspread, dark gray with a white pillow. Mikasa’s was a very light pink with a blue pillow. The desks were on the wall opposite the door. Annie’s was empty except for some books. Mikasa’s was shaping up to be incredibly organized, crammed with books lining its back, the wall space above it occupied by a calendar that Mikasa was now covering with post-it notes, and photos of the boys Annie had just met.

“What’s all this?” Annie said, wandering over with her textbook under her arm.

“Huh? Oh. Linguistics and Japanese books mostly. My majors.”

Annie nodded. “Cool.”

And by that Annie meant that it was fucking terrifying. Cramming two majors into four years? And one of them she’d have to learn the hardest fucking language on the planet? No thanks.

“I meant the post-its though,” Annie went on.

Mikasa looked at them before saying, “Reminders.”

“Of what?”

Her roommate shrugged. “Some of my teachers emailed their syllabi. I marked the upcoming tests and important assignments.”

Annie laughed. “That’s fucking crazy.”

“Excuse you?”

A very nice death glare, one that could rival Annie’s.

Annie shook her head. “You’re really preparing that much? I’ve never…” She stopped herself. Maybe she could learn something from Mikasa. “I mean. I’ve never met such a diligent student.”

Mikasa studied her for a moment, eyes betraying nothing. “Oh. Yeah. I guess I care a lot.”

“Right.”

After a long enough silence, Mikasa said, “What’s your major?”

“Oh. Bio,” she said, hefting the book up. “It’s interesting.”

“I can see that,” Mikasa said, looking at the book with wide eyes.

“What?”

“You’ve read _that_ much?” She pointed at the bookmark that had already made a decent headway through the thick, huge-paged book. “You think I’m the crazy one?”

“Pff. The teacher has a weird style. It’s like a trashy novel almost.”

“Trashy.”

“Before I picked up this book, I knew nothing about the sex lives of major biologists. It’s all in the footnotes.”

“Nice.”

Mikasa ran her fingers across the linguistics book lining her desk. “Mine are dry. But I enjoy the subject.”

“I can tell by the way you said syllabi instead of syllabuses.”

“Ha. I guess so.”

“I think I’m gonna go check out the library.”

“Alright,” Mikasa said. “See you later. And thanks again for the bed.”

“Don’t mention it.”

 

The library was cold but quiet, with two high-ceilinged stories housing dozens of rooms: cozy armchair reading areas (one with an actual fireplace), simple desks each crowned with small pull-chain lamps, and towering rows of dark mahogany bookshelves. She found a carrell in the very back corner of the second floor, walled by a shelf of self-help books.

The librarian had given her a strange look when she first arrived. _You’re studying? Now?_ It almost felt good, playing at being a good student.

In a few hours, the library closed, and Annie went for a long walk. There was a slight evening chill. The trees on campus showed no sign of ceding to autumn and dropping their leaves onto the still verdant grass. It would happen in a month or so. By then Annie would know if she was a decent student or not. She would know if she made the right choice in coming here.

Annie walked for hours, circling blocks, passing frats and sororities with bass beats emanating from their insides.

It was a safe campus, or so the tour guides had boasted. Really, the only shady people Annie saw were the drunk Sina students, reveling in their new freshman status or else happy to be back after summer. Annoying, but mostly harmless. The streetlamps along the main road cast yellow auras of light on her path. Annie walked past another frat, voices and music raging obnoxiously. She passed an empty alleyway and soon turned right, at random, down another sidewalk. She came face to face with the trio she’d met that morning.

“Heeeey, ANNIE!” Eren said, lurching toward her with a wine bottle held aloft in drunken triumph.

She glared at him, then sighed and stared down at her phone, aware that he was advancing, fully intent on hugging her. Without looking up, she sidestepped him at the last second.

“Nope.”

“Wah!” He stumbled into the empty air and fell into the grass, wine bottle tossed to skitter and break on the sidewalk.

Armin burst into giggles. Mikasa barged past him.

“What the fuck, Annie?” she said, kneeling next to Eren. “Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?”

When Eren slurred out his answers—okay, and no cuts—Mikasa shot a look at Annie.

Annie shrugged, half-amused at Eren’s fall, half-annoyed by Mikasa’s anger.

“Was I too…handsy?” Eren said, getting to his feet with Mikasa’s help.

“Maybe,” Annie said. “I’m not a big hugger.”

“What are you doing out here?” Mikasa said suspiciously.

“Um. Being sober? And aloof? I dunno, I wanted to go for a walk.”

Mikasa nodded. “I see.”

“We’re heading back now,” Armin said.

“Okay. Later,” Annie said. She looked once at Mikasa. She could tell she’d been drinking by the slight flush to her face, but she bore her liquor well. Mikasa nodded at her once, and they went back where Annie had come from. A small puddle of black wine flowed around the glass shards, seeping into the grass.

 

In the morning, Annie woke up to a ceiling that wasn’t hers. Only it was. A new ceiling, a new room. Hers. Of course, she had to share it. Annie propped herself up on an elbow and wiped her hair from her face. Mikasa slept with an arm draped over her face, breathing softly. Annie sat all the way up, putting her legs over the bed’s edge. She watched her roommate for a minute (not creepy not creepy not creepy not creepy), then hopped off the bed and grabbed her toiletry bag and a change of clothes.

After surveying the white tile, mildew-ridden bathroom, she went back to put on her flip flops, then proceeded to brush her teeth. Today was Sunday. Her first morning, one that could set the tone for the rest of her college life. The eye contact she made with herself in the mirror was serious, Annie trying to penetrate a message into herself: _Care._ Her blue eyes blinked back at her, cutting and serious.

She’d made it into Sina by the skin of her teeth, and if she did well enough this year, she could apply for an academic scholarship. She just worried. She didn’t know how to be a “good student.” She didn’t know how someone could turn over a new leaf. She didn’t know who to ask. Mikasa had probably been…like that…for forever.

After a minute, Annie bent to spit out her toothpaste. As she did so, the bathroom door slammed open and bare feet slapped quickly against the ground. Someone ran into the nearest stall. The sound of vomiting followed.

Annie wiped at her mouth with her washcloth, waiting for the retching to stop.

“You okay?” she said.

A moan.

“I’m fine,” Mikasa said. “Just…”

“Hungover?”

A dry retch as answer. Annie winced.

“I know like twenty home remedies for that if you’re interested,” Annie said, her voice echoing off the walls.

A lighter moan. “…Gimme a minute.”

Annie went and prepped, turning on the TV in the suite and grabbing a bottle of pills, a cup of water, a blanket.

“Sit,” Annie said when Mikasa staggered out of the bathroom. She was a fucking mess, hair ruffled and unwashed, face pale as if to make up for how red it had been last night.

“I heard the best cure for a hangover is the shrill voices of daytime talk shows.” Annie turned the channel to an especially annoying Sunday religious talk show.

Mikasa just stared at her.

“What?” Annie said.

“You’ve read Murakami.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m into weeb shit, I guess.” The line about talk shows as hangover cure was lifted straight from a Haruki Murakami story Annie had read in high school.

Mikasa sat on the couch, curling up and pulling the cat-patterned blanket to her chin. “Narrator said he felt like his head was packed with decaying teeth. I didn’t know how dead-on he was.”

“First time drinking?” Annie said.

“First time drunk.”

“Ah.”

There was no reason for Annie to stay. She’d given her the talk show cure and all the anti-hangover supplies. But she sat with her, quietly watching catty WASPs argue over a couple millennia of theology.

Mikasa’s phone buzzed. Annie watched as she pulled it from her pajama pants pocket and shook her head.

“Armin’s not hungover. He drank water. But Eren’s about to die… I don’t know what he’ll do without me these next four years.”

“Without you? I thought you’re all students here.”

“Me and Armin. Eren’s leaving for Marley.”

“Ah.”

Marley. Way, way across the country Marley. It held incredible clout as the country’s number one party school. Mikasa bit her lip, worrying it with her teeth.

“He’ll be fine,” Annie said, as if she knew. “Dumbasses survive keggers all the time.”

“Ah, so you’ve picked up on it.”

“That he’s an idiot? Yeah.”

Mikasa pulled her knees in tighter. “But the thing is he’s _my_ idiot. He even considers me his sister.”

“That a good thing?”

“It’s alright,” Mikasa said, and clammed up.

Annie shifted in discomfort, the atmosphere unbearably chilly.

“I’m gonna…study now,” she said lamely. “Hope you feel better.”

Mikasa tightened her blanket. “Thanks.”

Making good on her excuse, Annie dressed and packed up, heading to the library again. If Annie just kept her head down, stayed away from partying, she could make it at Sina. It was a miracle she’d gotten in. She credited that to the writing tutors who beefed up her essay application to the point where the words were in someone else’s voice.

More miraculous was her parents footing the bill. They were so damn proud that the hallowed halls of Sina even considered her, they’d do anything. Of course, Annie would be left with the massive heaping of student debt. She’d worry over that in four years. If she made it that far.

Sina University. Being in its beautiful library was like being in church: the ornate flower-printed walls, the tall windows cloaked with deep crimson drapes, the hushed, reverent atmosphere of students gathering the information they were paying for, all of it cast an air of holiness that made Annie feel distinctly unwelcome. People like her belonged shoved into a dark dorm, playing Xbox and day drinking. Probably what Reiner was doing. As for Bert…

What did it matter? She went back to reading, her eyes skimming over Gregor Mendel’s garden of peas, on to Punnet’s squares, recessive genes, alleles. It didn’t matter. Annie buried her nose in her book, back hunching down, curving her body into the text. Nothing mattered.

 

The weeks proceeded in a blur, like the slurred words of drunk students passing through the street outside Annie’s dorm. Annie studied hard and aced tests. Mikasa probably did too, though it was rare that they saw each other. Annie studied late, went to bed late when Mikasa was already asleep. Mikasa got up super early to hit the gym. It was like Annie was living in a singles room. Or with a particularly standoffish cat that didn’t need any looking after. Then again, Mikasa could probably say the same about Annie.

Slowly, a change wormed its way in. Annie would get home late on the weekend—she had no friends, so studied instead—and Mikasa would still be gone. The first time, Annie thought nothing of it and went to bed as usual. Until later that night, when Mikasa stumbled in, drunk. Drunk and loud and needy, supported on Armin’s shoulder. He nearly had to do a fireman’s carry, struggling so much that Annie, bleary from sleep, got up to help.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing. “She’s just…”

“Plaaaasteredddd,” Mikasa sang, laughing through a series of hiccups.

Armin and Annie ignored her as she slipped to the floor, both of them looking at the bed that rose several feet off the ground.

“We could just…leave her right here,” Annie said, testing the waters of how lazy Armin could be. She was really fucking tired.

He shook his head. “No, we should really…”

“Aaaaaannie’s bed is low. I c’n sleep with her!”

Armin looked down at her. “I don’t think Annie would want that, ‘Kasa.”

“Yeah,” Annie said. “You’ll puke on my sheets.”

“Hiiigh thread count?”

“No. But they’re clean.” Annie knelt and held out her hand.

“Can’t. climb. UP!” Mikasa said and booped Annie on the nose.

“Fine. You can sleep in my bed.”

Mikasa suddenly became able to walk on her own, though she faceplanted onto the bed. Annie helped to remove her high heels, asked her if she wanted to change out of her party outfit.

“No!” Mikasa said like a petulant toddler, one who has just learned the word.

“Seeyah, Armin,” Annie said without looking.

“Oh. Bye. I’m…really sorry.”

“Whatever.”

Armin closed the door, and Annie turned to Mikasa’s bed. A hand caught hers.

“You can’t…sleep there,” Mikasa said mischievously. “I…have a high thread count. And you got…cooties.”

“Huh? Where can I sleep then?”

Mikasa tugged Annie’s arm, hard.

“No. No way. If I have cooties, you’ll get them.”

“Shower ‘em off,” Mikasa said. “C’mon.”

Annie’s brain screamed at her from some distant hill. Laying down with a drunk girl seemed wrong. But Annie was so tired.

“Please,” Mikasa whispered then. “I got drunk ‘cos I didn’ wanna ‘member some…shit, and now I still…can, and I don’ wanna be alone.”

“Fine. If you need a warm body.”

They got under the covers together, and Annie laid next to her, heart pounding. There was no way. There was no fucking way she was sharing a tiny twin bed with the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen. Beautiful and reserved, though the latter seemed out the window when she was as drunk as this.

“Tomorrow you c’n turn on the TV f’r me,” Mikasa said, toying with Annie’s hair.

“Okay.”

“Promise.”

“Yeah. Whatever you want.”

“Oh. And I sometimes kick or strangle…people in my…sleep.”

“What. The fuck.”

“It’s a jjjoke haaaa.”

“Well. One of us might not make it out of this alive. Not a joke.”

“Meanie,” Mikasa said, booping her nose again.

Annie did her best to ignore how cute that was and said, “So, do you like need water or anything?”

“Nope. Minny gave me some.”

Then she burped a noxious cloud of booze into Annie’s face. Delightful.

But worse was her wrapping her arms around Annie, tight, and snuggling down, her face burrowed in Annie’s chest. And before Annie could get out an “uuuh what the fuck?” Mikasa was snoring. Annie shifted her body, trying to get comfortable, trying to get away, but her arms were pinned, and when she felt how warm and soft Mikasa’s body was, it really wasn’t so bad.

 

The morning. The morning was bad.

Mikasa was the one next to the wall, and she all but trampled Annie in her haste at finding a place to vomit. Annie startled awake, reacting like the enemy had found her hideout.

The “place to vomit” turned out to be the center of their room. Inconvenient, but if Mikasa wasn’t yacking on Annie and/or Annie’s bedspread, she could accept it.

“Jesus FUCK,” Annie said after a long moment. “Are you making a lake?!”

Mikasa apologized between heaves. The sound made Annie sympathetically queasy. She shut her eyes, but imagining the scene proved worse.

Annie sighed. “Okay. I’ll get the Aspirin. And a towel.”

But then Mikasa pulled in her chin suddenly, prompting Annie to grab two.

After Annie cleaned up Lake Puke, Mikasa sat on the suite’s couch, sheltered in a blanket that covered all but her guilty child face. Annie had found a rerun of a screechy talk show on her laptop, and got Mikasa as comfy as her head and stomach would allow.

“You don’t have to be nice to me,” Mikasa said.

“It’s whatever.”

“Seriously! You could have let me clean that up.”

“You’re in no condition.”

“Right. I’m just…a really shitty person right now.”

“No, no. Plenty of good people drink like you do.”

“I’ve never…This is a new thing for me. I’m not gonna do it again.”

Annie would believe it when she saw it. Then she asked, “Why did you drink so much? You said last night you wanted to forget something.”

“Not really. Just wondering what Eren’s up to. He hasn’t called. Hasn’t…answered my calls. Texts later that he’s sorry and busy but…that’s it.”

“He’s at Marley, right? He’s just having fun.”

“That’s good,” Mikasa said, pulling the blanket tighter. “That’s good, right?”

“Yeah!” Annie said unconvincingly. “Listen…it’s hard to keep high school friends. Time and other stuff—distance, schedules—they’re barriers. It’s the start of college. For both of you.”

A long silence, until Mikasa said, “Hey. I haven’t been…texting you weird things, have I?”

“Texting?” Annie asked. “No?”

They’d traded numbers, just in case one of them got locked out (Annie wouldn’t be surprised if Mikasa lost her keys one of these nights). She also had Armin’s number now. For emergencies.

“Oh. That’s good,” Mikasa said.

“Why would you?”

“Sometimes when I’m drunk, I text the people I, um, I text people,” Mikasa finished.

“Would I even be able to read what you sent?”

Mikasa smiled ruefully. “Autocorrect does wonders. Makes it almost make sense.”

“Well, I look forward to your gibberish.”

“You say that now.”

“So this is gonna be a thing. You getting really drunk? Waking me up?” Annie paused, then dove in. “Sleeping with me?”

“I’ll try to get a handle on it,” Mikasa said in distress. “I’m really sorry that you have to put up with me.”

“I don’t really mind. I mean…it’d be good if you could control things better. For your health.”

They stared at each other, red-faced. This conversation was going in too many directions at once.

“Right,” Mikasa said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

Texting Annie weird things…

The following week, she found out exactly what Mikasa meant, with almost calamitous consequences.

Roommate: iiii hiiiii anne

Roommate: iiiiiiiii

Roommate: annniiiiieeeee

Roommate: iiiiiii

Of course, Annie didn’t know what the texts said, her phone being across the room on her desk. And since it was 2 am, Annie was in bed where she’d been having a deep, refreshing sleep. At the first chime, she was only mildly pissed, and rolled over to ignore it. Probably just Reiner. At the second chime, she moaned out a “what the fuck,” but stayed in bed. What-fucking-ever. She’d murder Reiner in daylight. On text number three, she sat up, glaring at the phone that glowed over on her desk. She was stalking across the room when the fourth text came in. She picked up the phone, squinting at the light.

“Weird texts…” Annie muttered, and another came in.

Roommate: Let’s take aaa nip together

Roommate: NAP

Roommate: lol lol

Roommate: nip together

Annie: no thanks

Annie: when u coming back

Annie: for your nap

Roommate: hahahhhaaha

Roommate: omwww cutesy!! >3

“Cutesy,” Annie said aloud.

Roommate: <3

Annie waited for a half hour, but Mikasa didn’t show. She went back to sleep. When she stirred in the morning, someone stirred with her.

“Ah!” Annie cried with a jolt. Mikasa had crawled into bed with her, quietly enough not to disturb her sleep.

“Mmmorning,” Mikasa said sleepily.

“You’re not hungover?”

“Headache,” Mikasa whined with her eyes shut. “No upset stomach this time.”

“Good. I enjoyed your texts.”

Mikasa’s eyes flew open. “Shit.” She sat up, to the detriment of her head, clutching at it before she pulled out her phone from the bra beneath the same green halter top she’d worn last night. As Mikasa stood and paced away, Annie figured it wasn’t so comfortable to have slept in those tight black jeans, but getting out of them drunk would pose a larger challenge.

Annie watched Mikasa’s face as she scrolled through the texts, first with a look of consternation, growing into full-blown horror, and, finally, shame.

“Sorry,” Mikasa said. “I warned you.”

“It’s fine. Cutesy.”

Mikasa turned away quickly, suddenly very interested in the post-its above her desk.

“Meant cutie…” Mikasa mumbled.

“As long as you meant it,” Annie said, intending to make her laugh.

But Mikasa got quieter, finally saying, “I dunno. It’s like…just drunk talk. Don’t worry over it.”

Annie nodded as if Mikasa could see her. She still hadn’t turned to face her.

“So…” Annie said.

“Better we just forget it all, right?” Mikasa said with a too cheery smile.

“Sure. I can do that.”

Annie knew she wouldn’t let it go. The question was, would Mikasa? Did Annie really mean nothing to her? Or was she…cutesy? Asking outright would be a romantic, sexual suicide on Annie’s part. People didn’t just ask. If they did, they wouldn’t get an honest answer. Or the person asked would think: you know what? I don’t like them anymore.

Annie had to play the game, and play it well, if she ever wanted a shot at Mikasa. The problem was immediately obvious, that Mikasa wasn’t expressing any interest in the cold, sober light of day. Annie would never take advantage of Mikasa. Her roommate could turn out to be a textbook Spaghetti Lesbian (a terrible term Reiner had introduced her to, describing straight drunk girls’ sudden and loose bends into same-sex attraction). If that was the case, Annie would rather pass. She couldn’t be a college girl’s sexual experiment, something for her to reflect on: ah, that time I got drunk and fondled my roommate, but it didn’t mean anything. Just drunk. Just college.

“I gotta recover,” Mikasa was saying as she pulled off her top. Annie gawked.

“Talk show time?” Annie asked, red-faced and looking anywhere else than Mikasa’s lacy bra (the slate gray one with the white flowers, and little flecks of pink and green).

“No,” Mikasa said. “I’m gonna go use the gym pool. Better than pounding the pavement with my head like this.” She dressed, grabbed a bag, a towel, a swimsuit.

“That’s crazy. But I won’t stop you.”

“Thanks!” Mikasa said as she headed out the door. “Sorry about the texts.”

The door shut.

“Don’t be,” Annie said to no one, and laid back on the bed. She heaved a sigh. “Heh. Cutesy.”

 

Mikasa balanced getting drunk on weekends with what appeared to be near torturous morning workout binges, coming back to the dorm so tired that she crawled onto her bed without even showering, drenched in sweat. She always looked like she’d run a marathon.

Annie preferred it to the times she was carried in, drunk and approaching unconsciousness.

Some mornings Annie’s body would wake her up, just to watch the enticing show that was Mikasa in tight little shorts and black sports bra, performing endless sit-ups and push-ups before heading off to the gym. It had to be illegal for muscles to ripple like that.

Mikasa even worked out on the days she didn’t drink, as if fighting off the beer’s empty calories or embarrassing influences (Annie had since gotten a number of innuendo-laden texts that they didn’t dare to discuss). Lately, she’d begun to look forward to those Saturday night flirtations. One memorable weekend, she responded.

Drunken Roomie: u up????

Drunken Roomie: hey guess

Drunken Roomie: what

Annie: I’m up

Annie: now

Annie waited several minutes for Mikasa to begin typing again.

Drunken Roomie: do u wanna go to the diner with us

Annie: whomst

Drunken Roomie: pretty girls

Drunken Roomie: but not as

Drunken Roomie: lmaooo

Annie: I’m asleep right now

That text had been sent with shaky hands. Had Mikasa been about to say “not as pretty as you?” Had she thought she’d sent it all and forgot? Did Mikasa think girls were pretty? Should Annie be actually very jealous and concerned?

Drunken Roomie: excuse me

Drunken Roomie: I burped

Telling her to take an antacid was the best Annie could do. Not exactly flirty banter, but maybe they were past all that now. Mikasa was only drunk, having fun, being thoughtless. Like every college kid the world over. Mikasa was so intent on having fun that night, that she didn’t reply back, as much as Annie waited.

Eventually, Annie turned out the light and went to sleep. She woke with a shadowy figure on top of her and, fearing for her life, punched that intruder in the throat.

“AUGH!”

“I NEED AN ADULT!” Annie shrieked for no good reason. Her attacker rolled to the floor with a thud.

“Fuck! Annie, we’re both adults,” Mikasa wheezed from the ground.

“Mikasa? Shit, I’m sorry. Why the fuck were you crawling all over me?”

“Cause I’mmmm drunkssss.”

Annie went to turn on the light. Mikasa sat on the floor, rubbing at her throat.

“Let’s go to beeed,” Mikasa sang at her, and when Annie sat down, Mikasa pushed her back onto the mattress, thighs blocking Annie’s escape, a hand cupping Annie’s hip.

“You’re drunk,” Annie said, trying in vain to scramble away.

“Established,” Mikasa said. “Should I get off? I’m just playing. Are you not into it?”

“It’s a bit sudden,” Annie said, shoving her away.

(And you’re a bit very drunk.)

“Sorry,” Mikasa said like a scolded child. “Can I still sleep with you?”

Annie sighed. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

“You have to change me into my pajamas…”

“Wha…DO YOU WANT ME TO READ YOU A FUCKING BEDTIME STORY WHILE I’M AT IT?”

Mikasa booped her on the nose again, Annie nearly exploding with perplexed rage.

“Kidding!” Mikasa chirped, and bounded off to turn out the light. Annie laid down, Mikasa nuzzling into her.

“This is a really _weird_ habit we’re forming,” Annie said, but Mikasa just giggled into her ear, asleep in minutes.

 

Annie was busy studying at her desk…the first time it happened on a weekday.

Drunken Roomie: pick me uppp

Annie: what?

Drunken Roomie: lol sorry

Drunken Roomie: sorry wrong numbers

There was no way, Annie thought, shaking it off. But an hour later, she heard loud arguing out in the suite, the special voices of very angry people trying to be discreet about said anger. And failing.

“You need to stop this,” Armin’s voice said through the door.

“I’m FINE.”

The keys were dropped with a clang, picked up, put in the lock.

“It’s fucking Wednesday, Mika,” Armin said as the door swung open.

“Social construct.”

Mikasa tumbled in, face first. He didn’t try to help her up, making a beeline for Annie.

“Make sure she stays here,” he said tensely. Then he lowered his voice, worry bleeding in. “As much as possible, actually.”

Annie nodded. “I’ll take care of it from here, Armin. Thanks for getting her home.”

He let out a relieved sigh. “Sure, yeah. I’m just…thank you, I’m exhausted.”

“Sure. See you later, Armin.”

“Bye byeeee!” Mikasa said, waving.

Annie was prepared, kneeling to Mikasa’s level. “Can you walk? Get in my bed. I have the trashcan right here. Sleep on the outside so you can get to it, okay?”

“Nnnn.”

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Annie whispered.

She got Mikasa under the covers, feeling not for the first time like a mother tending to a rowdy toddler.

“Wanna hear somethin’ funny?” Mikasa said.

“I’d love to,” Annie said, climbing over her to the other side of the bed.

“Eren…has a girlfriend.” Mikasa laid under Annie’s covers and shut her eyes.

“Oh.”

“Not meeee,” Mikasa said, framing it as another joke.

Annie didn’t laugh.

“I know what that’s like,” Annie commiserated. “It gets better. But you have to work on it.”

“How?”

“Dunno. Actually, I’m gonna get you a glass of water. Sit up if you can.”

Annie went out to the suite bathroom. Mikasa Ackerman, falling apart. She must really have it bad for that Eren kid. She wondered what she saw in him. There were better people…

When Annie returned, Mikasa was seated on the bed with her back against the wall.

“Here. Drink all of it.”

Mikasa took the glass, her failing gross motor skills splashing water everywhere as she gulped it down.

“I’m not gonna say you have to be happy for him,” Annie said when she was done. She put the glass on her desk. Mikasa didn’t say anything as Annie turned out the light and crawled into the bed.

“But I am,” she answered at last, squeezing Annie ‘til her ribcage practically cracked. “I am…I’m _so_ happy, Annie.”

Annie couldn’t breathe. When the death squeeze ended, she said, in a measured tone, “You can’t force emotions. Bad feelings about something good…they don’t mean that you’re bad.”

“Then why do I feel like shit? All the time…”

Annie didn’t have an answer for that, doubted that anyone did. As for her own mess of feelings, she felt a perverse pleasure in Mikasa cuddling up to her. Even though she was a wreck, lonely and uninhibited, the thought of having Mikasa stay in her bed more often was a happy one. With stinging shame, Annie felt the fear of who she was becoming. Of who she already was.

Here she could stroke Mikasa’s hair, soothe her, take away the pain, feel the warmth radiating onto her. If Mikasa had a problem, it was Annie.

I need to help her, Annie thought urgently, counting the minutes until Mikasa’s sobs evened out, her tight hold finally coming undone.

Then Mikasa’s fingers found Annie’s hair, sifting into it. From outside, headlights cut a beam through the window, slipping over Mikasa’s eyes, which glistened and stared at Annie’s face.

“Pretty yellow hair,” Mikasa whispered. “You should wear it down more.”

“Nah,” Annie said. “It’s a hassle.”

“I like looking,” Mikasa said.

“Looking at me?” Annie said, trying not to hope.

“Yes. Your…” Mikasa giggled.

“What?”

“Your scowl haha. I’d wanna kiss it away.”

“Oh. Really. That’s…”

(That’s a lot. Or nothing. Because you’re drunk.)

Mikasa echoed Annie’s thoughts with her next words.

“But don’t think hard…about it,” Mikasa said tearily. “When I’m drunk it’s… Shit, I’m sorry! God, I’m sorry, I’m…”

And Mikasa broke down.

Annie pulled her close. “It’s okay,” Annie whispered to her.

“It’s okay,” Annie whispered, long after Mikasa fell asleep. If people won’t listen to these things awake, they might hear them subconsciously.

 

“Did we talk last night?” Mikasa asked, first thing.

Annie groaned. She’d gotten maybe a half-hour of sleep. The smell of Mikasa’s shampoo mixed with alcohol and Annie’s own swirling guilt: that and more kept her mind racing. “Yeah. We kinda did. We talked a bit.”

“Oh. Eren’s…”

“Mikasa. He’s not worth your Wednesday night. Or your Thursday morning. So just….relax, alright?”

What was compelling Annie to say that?

Mikasa nodded. “I think Eren’s just an excuse.”

“For what?”

“I don’t think I’m the type who can stop.”

“Ah.”

Stop drinking, stop getting wrecked at every party. Annie had been there, though for her it really had been a phase. Adolescence, teen angst, whatever you call it. Mikasa had just gotten started. And it was bad, Annie had to admit, staring at Mikasa’s pale, worn out face. Still, Mikasa was owning up to it early. There was hope.

“You’re smart. You’ll get through.”

“No, I’m not. My grades are abysmal,” she muttered.

Annie had to laugh. “Smart people use the word abysmal. You’ll be okay.”

“I failed a big exam. One in my _major._ I…I…”

Mikasa teared up. Annie wasn’t good with emotion, really, and just sat there, waiting for Mikasa to get it all out.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Mikasa went on. “Eren’s…gone.”

“He didn’t seem so special to me.”

Wrong thing to say. Mikasa glared at her.

“I just mean,” Annie said, “find another boy or…”

Or girl. If Annie really was cute or pretty. If her conscience would allow it.

“Eren’s just one person that you know,” Annie went on, chasing the bad thoughts off. “Get to know other people.”

“He’s not just a person,” Mikasa said. “He saved me. When my parents died. He opened everything. He didn’t fix it. No one can fix it, but…I’m still here because of him. It’s like he doesn’t even notice what he did for me. How important he is. He sees…”

“A beloved sister?” Annie said.

Suddenly, Annie’s mind raced. Her parents died? If true, then had Annie really said that thing on the day they first met? “I didn’t want my parents to come.” Mikasa’s chilly reply now made a horrible amount of sense.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said. “About your parents and…stuff.” But was she sorry about her losing her parents? Or sorry she’d made that faux pas?

“Not your fault. So, I think I’ll find a new boy. Some of them…flirt with me at the parties.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’ll be…good for you. Mikasa, I…”

“Hmm?”

“I wanna be able to help you. More than…more than cleaning up for you the day after. If we could prevent things first…”

Shit shit shit stop.

But Annie kept going, hearing herself say, “I study at night. If we studied together, it could replace your habit.”

(And I can spend more time with you.)

“Huh,” Mikasa said. “You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”

“Yeah. Maybe finding a guy friend will help more,” Annie said with an uneasy chuckle.

Mikasa nodded, deep in thought. “Aren’t there any cute boys at the library?”

“Armin,” Annie said.

“Oh.” Mikasa chuckled. “You like him.”

“No. I’m not into bowlcuts.”

“I’ve been trying to tell him. Nicely,” Mikasa said. “I’ve gotta go to class.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Can’t wait around to get my life in order. Thanks for…I’ll see you.”

“Okay. Later.”

Shit. Not smooth at all. Chasing straight girls…Didn’t that imply that the straight girl was running away? Annie thought about it all through chem class. Halfway into the lecture, she realized she’d left her hair down today. In penance, she borrowed a hair tie from a girl sitting next to her and hastily tied it up.

 

Mikasa’s flirting—the looking, holding, and teasing—repeated itself a couple more times. Still, Annie treasured, hoarded, the times they slept in the same bed. Even when it meant Mikasa was slipping into bad habits. When Mikasa would wake in the morning and puke her guts out and cry and tell Annie all about her bad grades, her failing her parents, and she’d tell her about Eren, and this girl Historia who Eren was fucking, and Annie would listen, and Annie would try to give advice.

“You have to move on,” she’d tell her again.

Studying together did happen, but at Armin’s insistence. It worked out that he was freakishly good at chemistry, a class that was eating away at Annie’s GPA. On weekends they’d work through problems together at the library, Mikasa chewing at her pen and checking the time all night. But she was there. Studying.

“My grades are better,” Mikasa said one night.

“Of course. You worked hard,” Armin said.

“Annie,” Mikasa said. “You’re really inspiring. You too, Armin. Just...How do you do it? You’re so together.”

The question seemed directed at Annie. She hesitated, then said, “Wasn’t always like that. Studying helps me pretend I’m different than…before.”

“Before?” Mikasa said.

“I got drunk. And high. I kinda had a reputation.” She darted a glance at Armin. “Slutty.”

“Okay. That’s okay,” Mikasa said.

Armin nodded vigorously.

Annie stared down at her notes. “Like one night, my friend…”

No. No, don’t fucking talk about that now. Not with her. A heavy silence descended.

“If you don’t wanna…” Mikasa began.

“Hey, forget about it. Can we go out?” Annie said suddenly.

“Now?”

“Yeah, like. I need something. And I’ll make sure you don’t drink too much. And Armin can be there too.”

“I dunno, guys,” Armin said.

“Please,” Annie said. “I need this. Just tonight.”

Mikasa thought for a moment then smiled. “Okay. Just one night. Come on, Min.”

 

As luck would have it, Sasha was headed out to party at her new boyfriend’s place, an apartment off campus. Annie, Mikasa, and Armin tagged along with her, following her to an apartment complex infamous for casting a stank of weed across a half-mile radius. Like, constantly.

Sasha banged on the door to apartment number thirty-three.

“BABE!”

A male voice called from inside. “BABE!”

A lock slid, and Connie Springer opened the door.

“Oh,” Annie said.

“ANNIE?” Connie said, pointing with the bottle of beer in his hand. “Annie the Lion’s here!”

A few “woos” chorused from inside.

“We know each other from high school,” Annie said without amusement. “Vaguely.”

Connie was the one always throwing “ragers” at his house. Annie usually left early.

“Yeah yeah yeah!” Connie said excitedly. “Come on in.”

They stepped onto a dark brown carpet not dark enough to hide multiple beer stains. The coffee table had a broken leg. Annie and Mikasa watched from the couch as people kept trying to put their drinks on it. They slid off, causing more stains that no one would clean up. A janky-looking, lime green hookah machine sat in a corner. No one was using it, leading Annie to guess that no one felt like getting mono tonight.

Sasha outfitted the three newcomers with cans of warm, almost hot, beer.

“Oh my,” Armin said, perching on a stained recliner.

Meanwhile, Connie made out with Sasha ferociously.

“Are they eating each other’s faces?” Annie whispered.

“If she eats him, who will forget to pay rent?” said a guy seated by Mikasa. Jean Kirschtein, a guy Annie saw around campus. Pretty chill, might be considered cute.

“You’re Jean,” Mikasa said, and Annie wished she weren’t talking to him, maybe thinking about how cute or handsome he might be.

“Mikasa, right?”

Mikasa smiled. “Yes.”

“I’ll be right back,” Jean said.

Mikasa looked at Annie, the excitement in her eyes saying, “Already found a boy.”

Annie opened her beer and started to drink.

Sasha unsuctioned her face from Connie’s long enough to announce some new arrivals.

“Hey everyone! This is Pieck. She’s a crazy bitch, and I love her.”

The crazy bitch named Pieck smiled and ducked her head at them, brushing back her long black hair. Her eyes seemed sleepy and were, upon closer inspection, bloodshot to hell.

“Yo,” Pieck said. “I’ll try to remember your names but…”

“And this,” Sasha said of a very grumpy looking young man “is Porco. It’s on his birth certificate. Honest.”

“Cram it,” Porco said. “I didn’t come all the way from Marley for the same old shit.”

“Marley?” Mikasa said, sitting up.

“Party Marley! We’re sophomores,” Pieck said, draping herself onto a recliner.

“It’s pretty great,” Porco admitted. “The teachers don’t expect much.”

“Especially the morning classes,” Pieck said.

Annie watched the wheels turning in Mikasa’s head, with a growing sense that this would turn out badly.

“Do you…do you know Eren Jaeger? He’s a freshman.”

“Sure,” Pieck said easily. “He’s dating that lesbian.”

Oh.

“Alleged lesbian,” Porco said.

“Lesbian!” Pieck said happily.

Mikasa’s jaw dropped. “So she’s…”

“Pretty into my dealer,” Pieck said.

“Ymir?” Porco asked. “Pieck, you gotta hook me up with whatever she’s giving you. Where does she…” Porco and Pieck chatted aimlessly. Annie watched Mikasa take a long drink.

“Fuck,” Mikasa said under her breath. “I have to tell him.”

“Oh, honey,” Pieck said with a yawn. “He knows.”

“What do you mean he—”

But Pieck curled herself like a cat onto the recliner and said no more.

“She’s out,” Porco said with a seen-it-all shrug.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Mikasa said to no one. Then, turning to Annie, “Something so important. It’s…”

“He can handle things on his own, right?” Annie said with a wincing smile.

Armin agreed, but Mikasa wasn’t listening.

Then, in a hailstorm of bad timing, Jean came back with shots.

Mikasa downed hers. Suddenly, Jean was the most interesting person in the room.

“No thanks,” Annie said. She had to study tomorrow. Even as she thought it, she realized she’d come here to let loose. And when Mikasa attempted to take Annie’s shot for herself, Annie took the words back.

“Actually, yeah,” Annie said. “Give it here.”

Annie kept drinking, quietly, nervously, telling herself she’d just see how things played out, be a wallflower like always. Not that she was much of a talker anyway, but when she was worried all conversation stopped. She watched Connie and Sasha exchange tongues, telling herself Mikasa and Jean wouldn’t progress to that.

Unfortunately, Annie’s silence left Jean and Mikasa as the only ones talking (Porco was surly, Armin timid, Pieck dead).

“Then Connie fell onto the coffee table and splintered the leg!” Jean said.

Mikasa laughed harder than the anecdote deserved, a hand falling gently, purposefully, onto Jean’s knee.

“You guys are wild,” Mikasa said.

“Wild?” Jean said. “I guess so. But that’s just college, right?”

“Yeah,” Mikasa said with a knowing smile. “Guess so.”

After a half hour of Jean and Mikasa talking like this, Annie had had enough. She’d seen enough, she’d drank enough, and there wasn’t enough space between Mikasa and Jean on the couch. Not enough for Mikasa to keep her hand off Jean’s thigh. Not enough for Jean’s mouth to stay away from Mikasa’s ear, whatever he said making her laugh, making her apologize to Annie and Armin, and sneak off with Jean to his bedroom.

Fuck.

Annie downed a shot and took two beers for the road, stuffed in her hoodie pocket. She left Armin to fend for himself.

 

Drinking alone in an empty dorm room, Annie’s desk light illuminating a small corner. This was some life. The true college experience (a bit too much like high school’s). Mikasa had found her cute guy. They were hooking up right now, slobbering all over each other like Connie and Sasha. Annie’s mind kept veering drunkenly to Jean’s mouth on Mikasa’s ear. What words enticed Mikasa into his bed? If Annie had said those same words…

She drained the rest of her beer, the foul wateriness of PBR becoming nothing but a bad memory.

With not a small amount of shame, she staggered to her bed, stripping off her pants, her panties, getting under the covers. She imagined going to a party with Mikasa. Both of them getting wrecked. Together. But this time, Annie was the one whispering into her ear, words that would make Mikasa really see her, drunk or not. Leading Mikasa by the hand, slipping under sheets. Annie rubbed at her clit, circling her fingers slowly. Her moans were too loud. Someone in the suite would overhear, she knew. But who fucking cared? Annie groaned as she inserted two fingers inside herself. This was an unquenchable, pulsing want, a sexual movement she hadn’t known for months.

She tried not to think about the last time. Instead she thought of Mikasa straddling her, dirty and drunk. Mikasa’s long, elegant fingers working between Annie’s legs, sending her into an agonizing pleasure. Her hand sped up. She got close. She thought about Mikasa. She tried not to think about the last time. She brought herself to a shuddering orgasm and let out a single sob.

She buried her face in her pillow.

And tried not to think about the last time.

 

The next morning. Sunday. Luckily Annie was through with all her sinning on Saturday night (2 AM was still considered ‘late Saturday,’ right?). Annie rolled over to find Mikasa getting home, the clock reading 6:30 AM.

“You look like trash,” Annie yawned, her head feeling like it had several loose components.

“I am trash. Slept with that…fucking bastard. Has a choking fetish.”

“He choked you?”

“…Nope.”

“Oh… Did you use protection?” Annie asked.

“Not funny.”

“Not joking,” Annie said, sitting up. “So did you?”

“Yeah,” Mikasa said, sitting on the edge of Annie’s bed. It dawned on Annie that under the covers she was naked from the waist down. She prayed Mikasa wouldn’t notice her discarded panties and jeans on the floor.

But Mikasa was off in her own head. “Still. It was a mistake. I…” Mikasa laughed. “I called Eren.”

“Oh. While you were drunk?”

“When wasn’t I drunk? And what were we thinking? Going out? Only drinking a little? I abandoned you.”

“It was my idea. I take the fall.”

“Eren knows Historia’s a lesbian. He’s…he said she’s not out yet. He’ s covering for her.”

Annie cracked a smile. “Sounds like a standup guy.”

“He is.” Mikasa stood and thought for a moment. “He really is.”

Mikasa received a text, looking down and snorting at what she read.

“It’s Jean. ‘You were great.’ And a winky face.”

“Yike,” Annie said, failing not to think of how phenomenal Mikasa would be in bed. “So this was a onetime thing?”

“Ha. Barely,” Mikasa said. “I’ll have to get rid of him.”

“Murder is not legal in this state yet.” Mikasa went to lay on her own bed, facing the wall and affording Annie the privacy to put on her pants. Then Annie started gathering her textbooks and her laundry. Despite Mikasa regretting Jean, Annie really wanted to get away, though not before giving a last bit of advice. “Just imply he has a tiny dick.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” A pause as Mikasa rolled to face her. “Hey, Annie. It’s almost midterms. If we could study together…”

“Yeah but…sobers only.”

“Oh.”

Crestfallen. Annie hadn’t meant it to hit like that. If anything, she wanted to say that not drinking would clear Mikasa’s head, help her study. It came out as Annie being an asshole. For some reason, she didn’t correct her mistake, pocketing her roll of laundry quarters and closing the door behind her.

Mikasa wasn’t any of Annie’s business. This was what she told herself again and again. They were two people occupying the same space, sleeping together, whether it was one bed or two. Platonic, or less than platonic. They were roommates. Nothing more.

 

Annie refreshed the academic portal all morning. The school released the midterm results in one fell swoop, and the kids that gave a damn about GPAs were on the edge of their seats. If a hacker looked in on Annie’s browser history now, they’d be disgusted by how grades-obsessed she had become. She divided her time between that and social media, until finally, her midterm grades were posted.

Straight fucking A’s. A couple A minuses, but fuck. Fuck! Annie was on her way to being an Honor Roll Bitch.

Mikasa groaned from across the room, closing her laptop to lay her head on it, shoulders trembling.

What was proper roomie etiquette here? Address it or ignore it?

“You have time to fix it,” Annie said at last. “And I didn’t mean that ‘sobers only’ thing like that. You should come study with me. At night. Instead of partying. I mean if you wanna. You don’t have to. You can just ignore me I’m…rambling.”

Mikasa sat up, wiping at her face.

“No. It’d…I’d like that a lot.”

“Okay.”

“I’m failing two of my classes. I won’t pass at the rate I’m going, but I really…wanna spend more time with you?”

Annie blushed and crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “That’s cool.”

“When do we start?”

“Today? There’s no reason to wait. Once you feel better, I mean.”

“I think I need some time. I know that’s really lame but…”

Annie nodded. She knew what would happen tonight. One last hurrah.

And Annie waited up, studying late as usual. It turned out she didn’t have to wait long. At about one in the morning, she was on an anime study break when Mikasa walked in. Annie glanced back to nod a hello, but otherwise tried to ignore her: she was walking fine, albeit loudly. She could climb into her own bed.

But Annie heard a rustling directly behind her.

“Come on, Annieeee,” Mikasa said.

“Why are you in my bed?”

“Why are you not?” Mikasa teased.

“Gotta study.”

“Me too.”

Annie sighed and looked down at her unfinished notes on the endocrine chapter.

“I guess…”

(I guess I can lay down with you. It doesn’t sound bad.)

Mikasa sat up, half her hair crushed adorably. “Get undressed first.”

Annie opened her mouth, closed it.

“Pajamas?” Mikasa said, amused.

“Fine,” Annie said, grabbing her sleepwear and marching out to the suite bathroom.

Mikasa was different tonight. Not _as_ drunk. Still just as flirty. Annie told herself it meant nothing.

When Annie returned, Mikasa laid under Annie’s covers.

“Come on.”

Annie sighed and crawled into bed, and Mikasa wasted no time in pulling Annie close. She pressed her nose to Annie’s hair and inhaled.

“Pretty shampoo,” Mikasa said with a giggle.

“Sure,” Annie said.

“What’s wrong, grump?” Mikasa put an index finger to Annie’s lip.

“You’re only…affectionate like this,” Annie muttered as she turned her head.

“What do you mean?” Mikasa disengaged, forcing eye contact.

“Flirty. If…if that’s what it is. If it’s not…”

“Annie,” Mikasa said, all drunkenness leaving her voice. “I feel like this all the time.”

“When your inhibitions are gone.”

Mikasa furrowed her brow. “When you’re around…” She took Annie’s hand and put it on her chest. “…My heart goes crazy. All the time.”

Annie felt it in her palm: a warm, wild heartbeat. Was it really for her? She looked back up to see Mikasa staring, grave. Then Mikasa maneuvered on top of Annie, breath tugging at Annie’s from above. She pressed her lips to Annie’s, chastely, and pulled back, waiting.

“You…” Annie began. “I…” The speech-producing lobes of her brain shuddered and died. Her endocrine system doped her with enough adrenaline to sprint from a cheetah attack. As it stood, there was only Annie, gawking at Mikasa. Mind. Blown.

Mikasa sighed and fell off her. “Sorry. I like you. There’s just a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff, Annie.”

Annie nodded. “You should go to bed?”

Mikasa looked at her with sorrow and sat up, holding her head in her hands. “Yeah. Sorry I fucked this up.”

When Mikasa stood and reached the middle of the room, Annie said, panicked, “But if you like me when you’re sober…I’d…that’d be like really good.”

Mikasa turned to smile sadly. “Guess I’ll have to sober up, then, huh?”

Annie plunged in.

“Um…If you wanna study with me sometimes, I can take you on a date after finals?”

“A date,” Mikasa said with a blush. “Yeah, I’d…let’s do it. I’m gonna catch some sleep, so, goodnight, Annie.”

Mikasa turned out the light, and Annie fell back on her bed, swearing she’d be the first case of a person whose heart burst from their chest cavity.

 

Annie studying with Armin was a lot more like him tutoring her without getting paid. He was already in an organic chem class. Annie’s intro chem unit was child’s play to him.

“So, Annie,” he said in the middle. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

“Could you like, look out for Mikasa more? Like specifically around November 23rd?”

“November 23rd,” Annie said. “Why that day?”

“It’s an anniversary for her. A bad one. And it falls on a Saturday this year. I’m really afraid she’ll lose it that day. So let’s make plans now.”

“Plans?” Mikasa said, walking up. “We’re making plans?”

“Not really!” Armin said, chipper. “I have to go to the science library. Thanks for studying with me, Annie.”

Mikasa looked at him, then Annie, confused.

“Seeyah,” Mikasa said to him, and he fled. “Do I wanna know what that was about?”

“It’s not important. We have to study now.” This was their first study day, since the promise they’d made that night.

“Right…” Mikasa said. “First I have to show you something.”

“Okay.”

Mikasa opened up her laptop to the familiar blue of tumblr.

“What’s a study…blr?” Annie said.

“We post pics of our journals. Handwritten notes. Diagrams.”

Damn. Annie thought she went hard on her Study Aesthetics: coffee, post-its, multiple colors of pen. But it turned out Mikasa went harder, documenting it all and sharing it with—holy fuck, she had over 8000 followers?

“We,” Annie said. “This is a thing you do?”

“In high school. But I’ll get back into it.”

“Okay. If it helps.”

“Yeah. I lost a ton of followers by not posting this semester. So let me just—”

“NO.” Annie slammed down a fist. “We study. No ‘blr-ing’ in my library.”

“So possessive… Kinda hot,” Mikasa said.

“Wh…”

Mikasa closed her laptop. “For future reference, are there any more private places in this library?”

Annie’s face burned. “We…share a room together…you…dumbass.”

Mikasa sighed and closed her eyes. “No fun.”

“Besides,” Annie said, and cleared her throat, “we’re waiting ‘til after finals.”

“Right. After finals.”

Annie received a text. From Reiner of all people.

Reiner Pound Town Braun: I’m visiting

Annie: Why?

Reiner Pound Town Braun: Don’t get so excited jeez. My college lets out a couple weeks earlier than urs

Reiner Pound Town Braun: And I might miss u

Annie: Fine

Reiner Pound Town Braun: Where is your dorm?

Annie shot an answer back.

Reiner Pound Town Braun: Surprise visit soon!

“Annie! You’re not studying,” Mikasa pointed out.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

It had felt like years since she’d talked to Reiner. He was too entangled with Bert, too on his side, though he was on Annie’s too. There was a large part of Annie that blamed him for not ditching Bert like she had. She wanted all the ties cut.

She had to pull herself out of these thoughts before they killed her. “What’re you studying today?”

“African American Vernacular English,” Mikasa said. “Dropping copulas and all.”

“Can’t help you there. I’m pretty whitebread.”

“I noticed.”

“Pfff. Well, you can’t help me on this,” she replied, tapping her pen on her book. “I’m way past knowing that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. No more talking now.”

Mikasa nodded, and they settled in.

“I’m out of shape,” Mikasa moaned after an hour.

“Your rockhard abs say otherwise.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve seen you peeking at me,” Mikasa teased.

Annie turned a new shade of crimson. “We’ll study ‘til the library closes. Then I usually study in our room ‘til midnight but you…You can sleep.”

“Fun.”

Annie took a sip of coffee.

“Will we be in your bed?” Mikasa asked.

Coffee projectiled onto Annie’s textbook.

“AFTER FINALS,” she boomed.

Annie clamped a hand over her mouth. Mikasa laughed.

“Look what you made me do,” Annie hissed.

“You’re responsive,” Mikasa said, resting her chin in her palm. “This is interesting to me.”

“Okay,” Annie said, mopping up her mess with a page from her journal, “you’ve proved you can flirt with me without drinking. Why didn’t you ever act like this before?”

“While not drunk? ‘Cause I thought you were straight.”

“…I have NEVER…been so insulted,” Annie said.

“I’d take it back if I could,” Mikasa said with a slight smirk.

“Okay then. Can we please just study? Quietly?”

“Sure thing,” Mikasa said with a wink.

Annie tried. Still, she glanced up at Mikasa far too often, seeing how the other girl’s lips quirked up, eyes not once straying from her notes when Annie was caught. But the worst came when Mikasa was already staring back.

No. Not staring. Mikasa was somehow…smoldering, chin tilted down, eyes up, longing. She bit lightly on the edge of her pen, and Annie broke out in a sweat, feeling her visual virginity slipping away, if that was a thing, and though it wasn’t, Annie’s clothes were peeled away bit by bit under Mikasa’s heavy gaze.

Annie sunk in her chair and covered her face. “You don’t need to study _me,_ Mikasa.”

Mikasa pulled the pen from her mouth and pouted. “But you’re so endlessly fascinating. I’m sure I could ace you.”

“I give you an F. Wait, NO!”

Mikasa slapped her hand on the table. “God, you’re perfect!”

A librarian hustled up. “You two need to LEAVE.”

Annie and Mikasa stared at each other, openmouthed, then stifled laughter as they packed up. They went outside, autumn gusting them with a swansong of warm wind that burst through the night.

“I’m gonna have to start a sexually provocative studyblr,” Mikasa said.

“Don’t you dare waste your time like that. Tumblr is the Devil’s Juice.”

“Bottoms up.”

“And the Devil laughs.”

“I knew you were a memer.”

“Memes get me through,” Annie said. “Let’s go get coffee.”

“Sounds like a date?”

“I’m not paying for your frappucino.”

“Oh.”

 

Annie had found her slice of college. No drinking or drugs, no clubs or partying, not too many friends or people pretending to be her friend. It whittled itself down to her and Mikasa and occasionally Armin.

When studying alone with Mikasa, there was deep bond forming, with a warm, growing potential to know each other better. Annie had never had something like this. They’d shared only the one kiss, and chastely held themselves back from more. Finals weren’t far off, and the excitement was mounting. They’d already gone home for Thanksgiving and come back, having texted each other the entire time.

There was only one night Mikasa ditched studying: the night before the one Armin had warned Annie about.

Armin showed up at the dorm before Annie set out to look for him. It was a cold almost winter Friday, and Annie had been waiting for hours to go study with Mikasa.

“This is my fault,” Armin said. “We should have prepared to take care of her before the anniversary too. We were so stupid.”

“Are you sure she’s out drinking?” Annie said, but she already knew, before Armin held up his phone to show a slew of Mikasa’s drunken texts, Armin pleading from his end for her to come home.

“Yeah. November 23rd, in fifth grade, her parents were killed.”

Annie nodded, a hopeless feeling weighing her down.

“I’m gonna call her now,” Armin said with determination. “Figure out where she is.”

“Okay.”

“Mikasa?” he said after several rings. “Where are you?”

Then he set the phone to speaker, and Annie heard Mikasa’s voice jump out from a wall of party music. “—at the one house. The yellow…house.”

“I’m coming to get you,” Armin said. “Where exactly—”

“Come to the paaarty, Army! We’ll have fun. There’s hot boyyys…”

This exchange went on for several minutes before Annie plucked the phone from Armin’s hands and hung up.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ll take my car. And look for the yellow house.”

“Thanks, Annie,” Armin said as they headed to her car. “I don’t know what I’d…what we’d do without you.”

“You’d get along fine,” Annie said, unlocking the car doors for them. “No sense wondering what things would be like without me.” She started the ignition. “I’m already here.”

“Yellow houses…” Armin said.

“Kinda dark out,” Annie said.

A bit of an understatement. It was almost midnight, and the streetlamps were few.

“Keep your windows rolled down. There was a lot of music,” Armin said.

It took a couple hours, several stops at houses with loud parties, Armin directing Annie to drive around in an increasing radius. Finally, they found it.

“Fucking Connie’s,” Annie said. She got out and slammed her door, storming up the stairs to Connie’s apartment with Armin following quickly at her heels. She pounded on the door three times, the din of laughter and music not fading.

“Fuck it,” Annie said and opened the door.

Mikasa wasn’t hard to find, straddled on Jean Kirschtein’s lap with her tongue halfway down his throat. How the hell he could enjoy that while choking on her…Oh, right. Choking. Whatever. Annie grabbed Mikasa by the collar and pulled her away.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Annie said over the music, loud enough that plenty of heads turned, if not all of them.

“Jean,” she said with a lazy, drunken smile, posture swaying.

Then, Mikasa spotted Armin, and she pushed Annie away. “So that’s it then. That’s fine. I’m—” she hiccupped “—That’s fine.”

“What?” Annie said.

“Mikasa…” Armin began, hands held up in surrender.

“You and him and…him and you?! All this time…FUCK you guys, fucking each other.”

“We’re together because we were worried about you. We’ve been looking for hours,” Annie said.

Mikasa processed the information slowly, then nodded.

“Let’s go outside,” Armin said gently.

Annie cast a glance at Jean, defeated on the couch. “Sorry, man. Maybe get Connie to strangle you tonight.”

Down a precarious flight of stairs, out into the cold clean air, Mikasa sat on the stoop with Armin and Annie on either side of her.

“Why’d’you come for me?” she said in a low voice, staring at her high heeled shoes kicked off on the pavement.

“We were really worried…” Armin said.

“Why cause my fucking parents are dead? Stop babysitting me! Eren…already called me. His parents already…”

“Relax,” Armin said. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

Mikasa lifted her head, tried to focus on Annie. “’M sorry I ruined our…study plans.”

“We don’t have to study tonight. Just forget about it,” Annie told her, rubbing circles on her back.

“Funny thing,” Mikasa said. “Drunk driver killed ‘em.”

Annie looked up at Armin, horrified.

Mikasa hung her head between them. “Don’t look like that. About me.”

“You can’t change how people react. Only how you do,” Annie said.

“So yer saying…don’t get drunk.”

“Yes.”

“Dunno if I c’n do that…”

“We’ll help you, Mikasa. There are programs,” Armin said. “Resources. We can talk about it in the morning.”

“…Clinical,” Mikasa muttered, a small smile coming to her face.

“Come on,” Annie said. “My car’s down the block.”

After assuring Armin that she had it handled from here, Annie and Mikasa went to bed together once more, Annie cradling Mikasa in her breast, shushing her as she rambled on.

“I’m the type of person that would get them killed,” Mikasa said. “I’m…a bad person. I think God just punished me…in reverse.”

“Your god sounds like a real mean bastard,” Annie said. “You should believe in someone else.”

“Who?”

“Me. Just stick with me and everything will go great. I promise.”

Mikasa sighed. “Stick with Annie…”

“Mmhmmm.”

“Are you mad about Jean?” Mikasa asked in a tiny voice.

Annie took a long time to form her words. “I’m more mad at him than you. Taking advantage of you like that.”

“What if I…took advantage of being drunk…to…do that.”

“No. No, it’s okay. You weren’t thinking.”

“Never think…” Mikasa said. “I’m a piece of shit, Annie. If you’re with me, you’ll get dirty.”

“Being with someone is never easy,” Annie said. “Why can’t we try?”

Mikasa took in a shaky breath. “I can’t drag you down to wherever I’m going.”

“I’ll drag you back up. Please. Believe me.”

“I’m still failing one of my courses,” Mikasa blurted out. “I’ll need a high A to get even a C overall.”

“Then we’ll study harder,” Annie said, cupping Mikasa’s face in both hands. “Once you make it, we’ll go on our date.”

“Okay,” Mikasa whispered, a hopeful, small sound. “You know I was worried.”

“About?”

“I know someone else who likes you.”

“Jean?” she guessed lamely.

“No. Armin.”

“That would never work.”

“I know. But I still feel bad for talking Armin out of it. Like I wanted you for myself. And…tonight when I saw you two…”

“Right, well. That was nothing. I’m not into twinks.”

Mikasa bit back a smile. “Okay. Good to know.”

“There’s only us. We’re two people that like each other a lot.”

“Yeah,” Mikasa said. “A whole lot.”

Minutes later, Mikasa’s breathing slowed, and Annie tightened her hold. She felt like she’d almost lost Mikasa tonight, and that fear clamped down on her, its pressure as sudden as it was unbearable.

 

“We should go on a date before finals. For good luck,” Mikasa said. She was holding Annie’s hand (a stunning new development) as they headed to the library. The sky was pillowy and morbid gray, the air freezing.

“No way,” Annie answered. “Unless your date involves mitochondria and sociolinguistics.”

Mikasa snorted. “Well, no…”

“Then no,” Annie said.

They entered the library, Annie leading them up the spiral staircase to the second floor. When they got to their corner hidden in the stacks, Annie stopped dead. Fairy lights adorned the book spines, twinkling golden light over their table draped in a velvety purple cloth. On it sat actual silverware…and two bowls of instant ramen, cans of Coke on ice.

“Maybe you’ll reconsider?” Mikasa said.

“This is…” Annie said sitting down.

“A study date. I added fried eggs to the ramen. And vegetables,” Mikasa said. “I figured we should have actual not actual college food. On our actual not actual study date. Do you like it?”

“I…Yes, yes I like it!” Tears sprang to her eyes. She scrubbed at them with her hoodie sleeve. “Coulda told me to dress up or some shit.”

Mikasa sat across from her. “Dig in.”

Annie started eating.

“This is really fuckin’ good.”

“Sasha made it, but she followed my recipe.”

“It’s really FUCKIN’ GOOD.”

“Shhh. We’re in a library.”

“On a date!” Annie whisper-shouted.

“Yes, Annie. On a date.”

“God, there’s candles.”

Mikasa lit them with a flourish.

“Yep. I wanted a violinist, but we’re on thin ice with the librarians as it is.”

“You’re amazing. I don’t deserve this.”

Mikasa sighed. “I don’t know why you’d think that. You’re the best roommate I’ve ever had.”

“Your only,” Annie pointed out.

“I shared a tiny room with Eren Jaeger for 5 years. Trust me. I’ve done my time.”

“You lived with him?”

“His family fostered me. They adopted me this year, just before I turned eighteen.”

“Oh. Why’d they wait so long?”

“I made them.”

Annie didn’t know what to say.

“I was pretty hung up over my parents,” Mikasa explained. “Couldn’t leave them behind by getting new ones. But I realize, family is something you create.”

“Right,” Annie said, bad memories stirring. “Not just through procreation.”

Mikasa laughed, then looked up to see Annie’s somber face.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Annie said. “I think there’s a Sasha hair in my ramen.”

“Gross.”

Annie read Mikasa: she knew Annie was lying. She let it go anyway.

“I know this is a dumb question,” Mikasa said. “But do you have plans for after college?”

“I’m getting my Mrs. Degree.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” Annie said. “I wanna pop out eight kids for that well-educated future hubby. I’ll find a business major. Get it over with.”

“Liar. What job are you looking for?”

Annie shrugged. “Bio could take me all kinds of places. Hopefully one with not a lot of co-workers. What about you?”

“I’d like to be a professor. I’m…usually good at academia. I wanna study languages. English, Japanese, Chinese, Italian. Everything.”

“You can do it. You’re way smarter than me.”

Mikasa’s lips quirked up. “That’s true.”

Annie threw down her napkin. “I’m leaving. Tip the waitress.”

“No way you’d bail on me.”

“You’re right. Much too attractive a date for me to ditch.”

Mikasa slurped up a great strand of noodles. “Damn right.”

They ate quietly for a minute, Annie stealing glances.

“So we’re not studying tonight.”

“Do we really need to?”

Annie inhaled. “I guess not. We’ve been working hard.”

Mikasa reached her hand across the table, palm up for Annie to take.

“Really glad I didn’t get my request for a singles dorm,” Annie said, gripping her hand.

After their meal, they walked arm in arm across campus, flurries of snow cascading around them. The streetlights were haloes. Their footfalls created a crushing sound, left records of two people walking very close.

“Annie!” a voice called.

Out of the dark came a tall silhouette, uneven steps revealing his inebriation.

“Annie,” Bert said, grabbing her by the elbows. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Bert, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to say sorry.”

“Bert, get off me!”

“I never meant us to go like that.”

“Bert. Get _off_ me.”

He fell to his knees and pressed his head to her belly.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry about the baby.”

 

Annie had pushed the memory, compressed it, molded it into something small but dense and terrible in the pit of her mind.

They hadn’t dated, like he wanted. One slip and it became worse than she feared.

Being so close to a person, hot breath on her neck. She was too drunk to want to stop. He was too in love. She wanted to try it. To have some fun. To love him back.

Annie remembered she hadn’t taken off her hoodie, his hands roaming under it. The fuck was quick, satisfying, done in her bedroom, away from the rest of the party raging downstairs. They didn’t talk after. Annie wanted to get up, but the way Bert held her made her feel so warm, a flame burning inside her that she hadn’t felt with other guys. It was real.

Maybe she wasn’t what he wanted, what he’d dreamed off. He thought she’d open for him like a flower, give him something she didn’t give anyone else in the whole world. Annie always felt that she had nothing inside her. Fucking her made him see.

And now, as he wept at her feet, bringing back a memory of a baby she never asked for, she grabbed the back of his hair in two fistfuls, wrenched him to look at her.

“Get. Away from me.” The tears flowed down her cheeks. She hated each one, the quiver of her chin, the weakness in her throat.

“Oh shit,” Reiner said, jogging up behind Bert. “What…”

“You asshole! You fucking piece of shit!” Annie spat at him.

Bert lurched away to puke in some bushes.

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like that,” Reiner began, taking an instinctive step away from her.

“You could have told me.”

“Bert wasn’t sure he’d be able to talk to you. Then he drank too much and…he feels really bad, Annie. He’s just a coward.”

“Fuck you. Get out of here.”

“I’ll text you later. We’re staying at Connie’s tonight.”

Annie stood there glaring at the ground as he laid a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t look up. He left, taking Bert with him.

“Annie…” Mikasa said.

Shit. She’d totally forgotten Mikasa was there, turned to stare at her wild-eyed, afraid.

“Annie?” Mikasa said.

“I’m…sorry. I need to be alone.”

Annie walked away, fast, shoes creaking on the snow. Tonight was a night she’d been avoiding. Where her two worlds—the one that had had a baby in it and the one that didn’t—finally merged. Sina was her escape. Bert reaching her felt like her life had been destroyed a second time.

“Hey! I don’t care!” Mikasa called.

She stopped. Mikasa was panting up to her.

“I don’t care,” Mikasa said. “It’s okay.”

“You don’t…care?”

Mikasa smiled. “No. I like you a lot. I like you more.”

Arms encircled Annie.

“I killed a baby.”

“…You did what you had to, Annie.”

“Didn’t do enough,” Annie muttered against Mikasa’s lapel.

Mikasa held her. Annie tilted her head up, blinking at the moon inside the clouds.

Silence, until Mikasa said, “When?”

“This year. Last semester of high school.” Her hand drifted to her stomach. “I’d still be…if I hadn’t…”

“It’s good you’re not. You don’t have to feel bad.”

“I was so relieved. I’d be a terrible mother.”

“Ssshhh.”

Annie sobbed. “I failed it. I failed it.”

“Stop that. I don’t want you to think that way.”

Annie clutched at Mikasa’s coat sleeves, shivering.

“Let’s go back to our room, okay?” Mikasa said.

The walk there was carried out in a perfect, painful silence. When they got inside, Mikasa sat on Annie’s bed, Annie struggling to form full sentences under Mikasa’s penetrating gaze.

“Um…” Annie said. “I don’t know how…”

Mikasa stretched her arm out, waiting for Annie to take it.

Annie sighed and ducked her head, sat down with Mikasa, who wrapped her arm around Annie’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Mikasa told her.

“I have to. I have to explain.”

“Why don’t you get ready for bed? You seem worn out.”

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds…”

Mikasa nodded, and both of them prepared for sleep. Every motion: stripping out of her shirt, pulling off her socks, letting down her hair, she held back the intense urge to weep in front of Mikasa. It wasn’t the ending Annie had wanted, or expected, but it was the one she got, and their first date came to a close with Annie certain it was their last.

Still, when Annie peeled back her covers and scooted over expectantly, she was confused.

“You’re sleeping over there?” she asked Mikasa, already up on her own bed.

“Oh. I thought you would want to be alone.”

“I think I’ve had enough of alone. That is if you…”

Mikasa smiled and slipped off her bed. “Yeah. Alone is overrated.”

Annie rolled to face the wall, the thought of being a little spoon suddenly very inviting. With a rustle of sheets and her weight dipping in on the mattress, Mikasa wrapped her arms over Annie’s middle, planting a kiss on the nape of her neck.

Annie shivered, and Mikasa pulled her closer. She fell asleep to Mikasa’s breath flowing in and out on her neck.

In the morning she woke up rolled over, face planted in Mikasa’s breasts. She pulled away quickly, slamming into the wall. Mikasa, already awake, chuckled.

“You got comfortable,” she said.

“Sorry…” With that, Annie sat up, sifting her fingers through her messy hair.

“Wanna go out for breakfast? I know a place,” Mikasa said.

“The library?”

Mikasa laughed. “No.”

 

“A place” turned out to be a sort of seedy 24-hour diner downtown, a hotspot for drunk and hungover Sina students, colorful locals, and truckers passing through town. They got a booth in the back corner, Annie making pyramids of the little plastic samples of coffee creamers and flavored jams. At last, she began to speak.

“Bert always liked me,” she said. “It was obvious even to me. Reiner always kidded us about it. I never thought something would happen.” She sighed and looked up at Mikasa, waiting with her hands clasped on the table.

“But we got really drunk, and I’ve always had like…affection for him. I don’t blame him for having sex with a drunk girl. It could have happened if I was sober, maybe. So that’s fine…”

She paused, stacking the coffee creamers in a tower as she thought.

“It was fine. Until I missed my period.”

Her eyes filled. She closed them and pressed her palms against them until she saw colors in the dark.

After a moment, she was okay, but her voice was shaky when she laughed and said, “This is hard.”

Mikasa hummed and smiled at her, extending a hand palm-up on the table. Annie took it.

“So I…didn’t tell Bert. But I told Reiner. I waited a really long fucking time too. Like it was almost too late to…get an abortion.”

Her hand started to sweat in Mikasa’s, so she pulled back and wiped it on her jeans.

“I was gonna go with Reiner. We went to the doctor and got an appointment.” Annie laughed here. “And they thought he was the father. So that was really weird.”

Then Annie hesitated. “But the day before the procedure…Well, you once said you felt like God was punishing you in reverse. But the day before the appointment I started bleeding. And…it hurt,” Annie said, voice cracking. “I wanted to drive to the hospital. Or call Reiner. But my parents found me when I passed out. I’ve never felt so humiliated.”

“So they took you to the hospital,” Mikasa said.

“Yeah. Everyone was way too nice to me. Like it was creepy.” Annie smiled, then froze. “Bert didn’t show.”

Mikasa had worn a placid, even expression, but a curtain of anger passed over her eyes when Annie told her that.

“It’s like Reiner said last night. Bert’s a total coward.”

“Mm. I think I agree with you.”

“He…texted me,” Annie said, trying to stage it as something comical, but Mikasa stonewalled her. No. It wasn’t funny at all, was it?

“I avoided him at school,” Annie went on. “Stopped going to parties. I smashed my phone against my bedroom wall, didn’t get a new one for a while. I got afraid of, like, intimacy. Like more than usual. Any guy was a guy who could knock me up, you know? Reiner was still around, still my friend, but…still talking to Bert. I completely snapped whenever he’d try to ferry me messages from Bert. It was such a betrayal. That they remained friends.”

“That’s a lot,” Mikasa said. “You know you don’t have to forgive him. Or even talk to him. He doesn’t deserve the time of day from you.”

“Yeah. I don’t think I’m the forgiving type, so don’t worry about that.”

But honestly, forgiveness had been on her mind. Being tolerant, understanding, the bigger person. It was a relief to hear those words: you don’t have to forgive. It was the opposite of what Reiner had told her.

“I think I’m ready,” Annie said after the waitress set their food down. “To talk to him.”

“That’s good,” Mikasa said.

“He’s still in town. Staying at Connie’s.”

“Kick his ass for me,” Mikasa said. Annie wanted to laugh, but Mikasa seemed…serious.

“Okay. I will.”

Mikasa slid out of the booth and got on Annie’s side, holding her tight.

“Our food’s gonna get cold,” Annie said.

“Shhh.”

“I didn’t have too many feelings. After,” Annie said. “And I still don’t feel like I have the right to grieve. I wanted the abortion. I wanted it out of me, and I got that. A day ahead of schedule.”

“Annie…”

Annie shook her head and pulled away from Mikasa. “After everything, I felt completely emptied out. Like losing more than a baby. Losing something that was there before the baby was. Now I kind of…feel not empty? In a good way…With you.”

Mikasa’s eyes widened. “Yeah. That’s good.” She hugged her again.

By the time they ate, their food wasn’t even warm.

 

Connie answered the door, double-taking and yelling behind him, “Reiner uuuhh…Bert! You have, um, Annie’s here. Hi,” he said turning back to Annie, red-faced. “You’re here.”

“Shut up, Connie,” Sasha said storming up to him. “Men are trash,” she said to Annie before pulling Connie into his room with her. Through the closed door, Annie heard Sasha chewing him out. She felt oddly emboldened by that flash of female camaraderie: men are trash.

Bert appeared, shock written all over his face. He looked like shit: mouth open, hair a mess, eyes haggard. She stood there, giving him her best glower, before slamming the door behind her and stalking over to the couch.

He sat with her, a good two feet separating them, looking like he was about to leap up and out the window at any second. The silence nearly caused a vein to burst in Annie’s head.

“You wanted to talk,” she said.

“Annie…It’s been bothering me.”

“Oh. Sorry you were bothered. It’s been hard for you, huh? Let’s make this quick.”

He raised his hands defensively. “I don’t know why I acted like that. It’s…it’s not right but…I was angry.”

“Okay.”

“That’s what I used. At first. As my reason for not talking to you after…um…”

“After I miscarried our child, yes.”

He paled at that and stammered until Annie nearly laughed in his face.

“You didn’t tell me,” he said, almost a whisper.

She couldn’t laugh at that. Instead, she pitied him. She said, “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I’m a coward too. Sorry.”

“You were gonna get an abortion by yourself,” he said, holding back tears.

“Yeah? Kinda. I’m not good at people. You know that. So I dunno why you’d, like, wanna have sex with me in the first place.”

Bert laughed and wiped at his eyes. “Annie. You try to make yourself unlikeable, but you’re still…you’re still Annie Leonhardt.”

A smile came to her lips. “That’s true. So…” She measured her next words carefully. They couldn’t be said with anger or bite. “We can’t be friends. We can’t be anything. We’re past that, okay?”

“Okay,” he said softly. “If I could go back…”

“You can’t,” she whispered. She rested her hand on his shoulder, dropped it, and stood. “Thanks for talking. I won’t see you around, so…bye, I guess.”

“That’s it? But there’s more…”

“There’s nothing more, Bert. If you think of something more, write me a letter. I promise I’ll skim it at least.”

He nodded, on the verge of saying something more, then deciding on, “Goodbye, Annie.”

 

She went back to Mikasa. They studied, they talked, they shared a bed at night, they studied more, inseparable. They took their finals. They’d hear back about grades over break. Right now, they were texting each other excessively as they waited for Christmas to come around. Annie’s house was overdressed with garlands and lights, scented pinecones dipped in gold glitter, a tinseled tree that the family cat absolutely went ham on.

“Go outside,” Mikasa had texted Annie.

Go? Was it snowing? How would…

Annie peeked out of her bedroom window. Directly below, someone stood at the front door.

Annie ran, thumping down the stairs, throwing open the door to find Mikasa, standing in a black peacoat and scarf, her red-from-the-cold cheeks pulled up with her grin.

“I had to see you,” Mikasa said.

“Wha…”

Mikasa lived a good three hours away.

“I wanted to tell you the news.” Mikasa tilted herself to look past Annie. “May I come in?”

Annie bear-hugged her and pulled her inside.

“What is it?”

Mikasa grinned and pulled off her gloves as Annie shut the door. Then she showed Annie her phone. An email with an update on Mikasa’s exam grades.

“Two B’s, one C, and an A!” Mikasa told her.

“I see that. That’s awesome!”

Mikasa embraced her, kissed her on the crown of her head. “You know it’s all because of you, Annie.”

“Shut up. You worked your ass off, Mika.”

“Yeah…Where’s your family?” she said, looking around.

“You came all this way to meet them?” Annie teased. “Things are going awfully fast here.”

Mikasa snorted. “Shut up! I just wondered why you were all alone.”

“They’re doing Christmas errands,” Annie said. “I’ll show you my house. Staying the night?”

“Hmm, I shouldn’t if your parents aren’t here to chaperone…”

“Stop that. But we do have a few hours if…you wanna see my bedroom?”

“Yeah! I mean yeah, that’d be cool.”

Annie held in a laugh, even as her heartbeat thrummed in her ears.

“Upstairs,” she said, leading Mikasa by the hand.

When they entered, Annie shooed away the cat, closed the door and leaned against it, watching for Mikasa’s reaction. Mikasa collectedly strolled about the room, looking at the deep blue walls adorned with Annie’s heavy metal posters, old anime waifu figurines on the shelves, horror novels crammed double-rowed into her bookcase.

“Eclectic,” Mikasa commented.

“If you’re trying to say I have weird tastes,” Annie huffed, “that’s fine ‘cos it’s true.”

Mikasa turned and smiled, walked up and bent to kiss her, a long, long openmouthed kiss, tongues roaming over teeth, breaths gasping and eager.

Mikasa was quick to pull off her scarf and unbutton her coat, Annie helping her out of the sleeves and discarding it on the armchair she always threw dirty laundry on anyway. Annie’s fingers worked at Mikasa’s blue button-up shirt, while Mikasa uncinched the belt on Annie’s torn jeans. When Annie stripped off her hoodie, she realized she only had a black tee underneath, no bra. Mikasa’s hand found Annie’s breast, tweaking a nipple and causing Annie to yelp in surprise.

“Sorry,” Mikasa laughed.

Annie growled, getting Mikasa’s shirt off, taking mere seconds to unclasp her lacy red bra. Mikasa’s breasts were pale and soft and beautifully round. Annie stared for a moment, then gave a single, reverent kiss to Mikasa’s sternum. Mikasa pulled off Annie’s t-shirt, stared for a moment, then grasped Annie by her hips, ducking her mouth into Annie’s.

“Wait,” Annie said, her mouth smooshed by a kiss. “Pants.”

Mikasa nodded, and they each scrambled out of their jeans. The panties came off, and they were there, fully, before one another.

Mikasa pulled Annie close, two warm bodies molding perfectly to each other. Annie grabbed Mikasa’s ass. Mikasa moaned and tangled her hands in Annie’s hair, tugging her hair tie free to let her hair fall to her shoulders. Mikasa guided her to the bed where Annie laid on her back, Mikasa on top, leaning down for a sweet kiss.

Then, a thought came to Annie, and she almost voiced it. It was, “This is where it happened with him, too.” She shut it down immediately. This was different. Sober and real and wonderful and different. This was Mikasa. This was Annie with Mikasa.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as she held Mikasa’s face, her black hair draping around Annie’s.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Corny, but true. They were together in this singular moment, each existing as the only person in the other’s universe.

“Tell me what you want,” Mikasa said.

Annie flushed. She remembered the night she got drunk, all the things she’d wanted to whisper in Mikasa’s ear. The things Mikasa could do to her…

“I want your hands,” Annie blurted out stupidly. Mikasa laughed.

She didn’t have much time to feel embarrassed, Mikasa’s hand sliding down Annie’s stomach, reaching the wet between Annie’s legs.

Annie moaned, making Mikasa smirk and say, “Responsive.”

Two fingers slid inside her. Annie tilted her head back on the pillow, gasping. Mikasa widened her fingers inside, the pressure so unbearably right that Annie instantly cried out. She clamped a hand over her mouth and clenched her eyes shut, embarrassed even as she bucked up her hips.

“That’s it,” Mikasa said encouragingly. “Knew you were a screamer, but…”

Annie moaned a “fuck you” muffled by her hand.

Mikasa sat up straight to get closer to Annie’s pussy, manipulating her fingers and the pace of her hand’s thrusts.

Annie could barely contain herself. Mikasa, however, seemed to revel in it.

“Say my name.”

“Mi…Mikasa! Ah, fuck!”

“That’s right,” Mikasa said. “That’s it.”

Mikasa’s fingers moved expertly inside her, overwhelming Annie in the best way possible.

“How bad do you wanna come right now?” Mikasa said at last.

“I…Fuck…So bad.”

Mikasa slowed her hand.

“Mika…please, I’m close.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Mikasa teased, wiggling her fingers inside. She started thrusting slowly, rubbing her thumb against Annie’s clit.

“Ah! I’m…”

Annie came. Harder than she thought possible, the release shuddering through her whole body as she screamed, an orgasm so complete that Annie thought in that moment she could be satisfied forever.

But she had a job to do, she realized as she laid there, panting up at Mikasa. The other girl looked agitated, worked up, and in need of her own release. After a moment of recovery, Annie sat up. And knelt on the floor at the bedside.

“Sit here,” Annie commanded. “And spread your legs.”

Mikasa perked up at Annie’s authoritative tone.

Then, she tasted her, the salt of her, Mikasa’s want, all for Annie. She sucked, hard and sudden, on Mikasa’s clit. Mikasa practically screamed.

Annie pulled her mouth away. “You get an A+ on responsiveness. And hypocrisy. Seriousl—”

Mikasa shoved Annie’s head between her legs.

“You’re the noisy one,” Mikasa said gruffly. “Do your job.”

Annie laughed and went back to exploring Mikasa’s clit with her tongue, massaging inside Mikasa with one hand, the other gripping Mikasa’s muscular thigh.

“Say my name?” she asked when Mikasa got close, fists knotting up the comforter on Annie’s bed.

“ANNIE!” Mikasa cried out. Annie grinned and went back to it.

When Mikasa came, Annie saw the girl’s head thrown back, chest heaving, that long, beautiful neck exposed. Annie’s next target.

Annie stood and pushed Mikasa back on the bed, feet still hanging off. Annie bent over her and unleashed a barrage of kisses on Mikasa’s neck.

Mikasa sighed. “I want you to mark me.”

Annie moaned her agreement, sucking and biting Mikasa’s neck. If she could, she’d let the whole world know Mikasa belonged to her.

When Annie collapsed onto Mikasa, they began to laugh breathlessly. In a minute they were lying on the bed, Mikasa curled around Annie, chest pressed against her back, an arm thrown over Annie’s middle.

“How was that for you?” Mikasa asked.

Annie thought for a moment. “You passed. With flying colors.”

Mikasa laughed, placing another kiss to Annie’s nape. “Well. Couldn’t have done it without you, sweetheart.”

**Author's Note:**

> Felt like writing a 20k-ish angsty one shot with a lower-cased song lyric title. How'd I do?
> 
> "I want you to think of me sitting and singing beside you." -Amanda Palmer
> 
>  
> 
> [Love, Rinky](https://acerinky.tumblr.com/)


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